(1)Mario vs (1)Samus Aran 2005
Results Tuesday, September 13th, 2005 Ulti's Analysis When the bracket was released, this was the debated match of the contest. Everyone knew that Mario and Samus would blast their respective divisions to bits and that they were in for a match come the tournament quarterfinals. And so, it came down to two simple viewpoints. On Mario's end, he was Mr. Nintendo. He's done more for that franchise and for gaming than any other character of all time. Mario fans figured that regardless of whatever the stats said that Mario would be able to SFF the hell out of Samus and win the match with ease. And for good reason. Not only was Mario the clear choice among the Nintendo faithful, but the Metroid series is fairly niche. It's only popular in North America, while the Mario series is popular the world over. If you don't believe me, go take a look at what happened to every last one of the Metroid games in the Spring 2004 Contest. All three of her entries were owned to hell and back come time to face a Mario or Zelda title. Mario winning the match was fairly obvious to a lot of people, if for no other reason than the fact that Samus being able to SFF Mario at all was absolutely asinine. We'll slap the "IT'S FREAKING MARIO!" tag on the general Mario supporters for this one. On the other end, you had a bunch of statheads who supported Samus solely because their beloved, outdated extrapolated standings had Samus projected to win the match with 56% of the vote. And why not? Let's all collectively avoid any spec of common sense or reason with regards to where the SFF would fall in this match and call it solely based on what the stats said. Let's completely ignore the fact that it was beyond obvious what Mario would be the benefactor of a ton of SFF in this match and simply go with Samus to win the tournament solely due to being the statistical favorite. It's not like the stats have ever been wrong before, especially in SFF situations. Regardless of who Mario was, the stats projected Samus to win with 56%!! Why, this means that the result was obvious. Samus was going to win! And for most of this contest, we Mario supporters had to listen to some of the dumbest arguments ever crafted, solely because Samus was higher in the 2004 stats. Never mind that Samus vastly disappointed against Ganon while Mario destroyed Zero. That was only a fluke! Match after match, pathetic stat fanboy post after pathetic stat fanboy post, blinded-to-reason-due-to this-board-clinging-to-their-stats-like-the-bible Samus supporters had but one thing to fall back on whenever anyone bothered telling them that Mario could very well win the match with ease: SAMUS WAS PROJECTED TO WIN BY 56%!!1 oh noes LOL Needless to say, stat fanboys were in for a much-deserved kick in the teeth when this match finally started. Not only did Mario begin the match in the lead, but he absolutely beat the ever-loving hell out of Samus right from the beginning. What was once the most debated match of the contest soon turned into an SFF beating of epic proportions, and a match that saw every stat fanboy and vehement Samus supporter fall flat on their faces. Not only was Mario beating the crap out of Samus, Samus was never in the match. This thing would go on to be a 60-40 SFF trouncing in favor of Mario, like virtually everyone with any grip on the gaming world (see: the people not blinded by the stats in every match who actually bother using sense once in awhile) foresaw in advance. This was not only a day for Mario supporters to celebrate, but it was a day to round up every stat nut and zealous Samus supporter and take all the feces that they had slung at everyone for two months, and launch it all back tenfold. Not a single one of them liked it, but I doubt that most of the Mario supporters doing it really gave a crap after all the garbage that they had been dealing with for the two months prior to this match. Every. Single. Time a Mario supporter brought up the fact that Mario could SFF the hell out of Samus and win with ease, they were fed stats and were essentially treated like idiots. Isn't it nice that this whole situation was given a drastic turnaround come match time? I don't know about anyone else, but this was one of my favorite matches of the contest for this reason alone. The people who had been mudslinging at the Mario supporters for two months had to lie in the bed that they had made for themselves, and it was hilarious to watch. There are few things that please me more than stat zealots having to try and explain their religion failing and generally becoming embarrassed to all hell whenever something goes wrong. And there was no other point in this contest where it went quite as wrong as this. Yet despite this, those same people will all forget that this ever happened and continue to cling to their religion like a cult. And like in many cases of the past, they'll simply ignore all the cries of lol, X-Stats and continue to make up every factor under the sun to explain any inconsistency in the system, all because the stats have blinded a lot of people to common sense. FACT: If Mario/Samus takes place before the stats exist, hardly anyone here picks Samus and those few who do would all be laughed at. But because of the stats, everyone ignored the obvious and second-guessed the inevitable, all the way down to one of the biggest collective self-ownings we'll ever see around here. lol, X-Stats. lol X-Stats, indeed. Match Trends Ngamer's Analysis Samus > Mario wasn't the pick because "lol we worship x-stats they could never fail baaaa we're sheep." It was the pick because Samus was legitimately the stronger character prior to 2005, by all indications. (Which is to say, not indications based on year over year x-stat strengths, but indications based on actual match results.) * Samus outperformed Mario in direct matchups against Link (62.06% compared to the 62.53% Mario allowed) * Samus had just defeated Sonic with 57.51% of the vote the previous year. Mario only managed 55.10%... against Shadow * Samus had just held Cloud to a respectable 59.01%. Mario got destroyed, allowing 61.60%... to Sephiroth Yes, he was always Mario, but he had never been "Freaking. Mario." until the Nintendo Boost sent him through the roof in 2005. We're talking about a character that had failed to triple Servbot, barely doubled Morrigan Aensland, needed the biggest miracle in history to top Cloud, needed the second biggest miracle ever to top Crono, who was embarrassed by Shadow and got pounded into the ground by post-KHF Sephy. Have you forgotten that after 2004 Samus was generally considered a favorite to beat Crono? Have you forgotten that Mario had just lost to Crono... allowing 53.24%? This idea that Samus was OBVIOUSLY going to get crushed by SFF against the King of Nintendo is ridiculous as well. As I just got done saying, she held up better against Nintendo competition against the true king of SFF, Link. Heading into 2005 past results, past stats, everything we'd seen from these two pointed to a Samus win. I shouldn't even be arguing this point, as I was one of the minority on the board who did correctly call the Mario upset, but I just get upset when I hear people acting as if that result was a forgone conclusion. External Links * Match Updates * Oracle Match Results • Previous Match • Next Match Category: 2005 Summer Contest Matches Category:Contest Matches